As I’m sitting here at BarCamp Milwaukee whilemy fellow DE, Peter Laudati, is hosting a BarCamp this weekendat the Microsoft offices in Manhattan. Checking out the BarCamp site, I see there is a BarCamp going on this weekend not only in Milwaukee and NYC but also in Ireland, Berlin and Milan! I wonder what the record is for the most BarCamps in a single weekend?
I think the idea of holding a BarCamp in our offices is fantastic. Nima did the same thing back in June at our San Francisco offices. This just goes to show you that Microsoft is willing to listen and enjoys a good conversation. Bravo! Now, I just need to find out what it would take to hold one in our Chicago office.
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BarCamp Milwaukee has officially kicked off. I missed this mornings festivitiesdue to a lazy Saturday morning and traffic on 294. I finally rolled in just before 1PM as the sessions were kicking off. Thankfully I made in time to see one of the sessions on my don’t miss list, Intro to Ruby on Rails. The session was presented by Jordan Arentsen, Justin Knoll andsomeonewho’s name I didn’t catch. I felt somewhat like a fish out of water as I sat there with my laptop, running Vista, emblazed with a Windows Logo puffy sticker and huge IE7 logo amongst the 10 or so Mac Books out of the 20 or so people attending the session. Still, that’s why I’m here. It give me opportunity to engage with the non-Microsoft crowd. Find out what’s going on in the world outside of the Redmond-walls.
I’m not sitting in the Drupal session. Drupal is a content management system built on PHP and Apache. I’ve heard of Drupal but never had a chance to dive into it. The overall theme that I’m gathering from both the Rails and Drupal sessions is there is a vibrant community behind these technologies, providing a vast library of pluggable modules to extend the capabilities of Rails and Drupal. ASP.NET has always had a vibrant community. Have you heard of .NET Nuke??? And with Live.com and Vista, there’s the Gadget Gallery.
Unfortunately, the Internet access is a little spotty. I’ll try to provide updates as the day progresses. If you’re here, stop the guy with the only laptop with an IE7 logo and say “Hi”.
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Come join us in Downers Grove for the next DevCares meeting. DevCares is a free monthly training event where we, in conjunction with our partners,highlight an up and coming Microsoft development technology. This month we are highlighting Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and will cover topics ranging from an understanding of WCF to working with Contracts to building Secured and Reliable applications with WCF. This month’s DevCares is being presented by Software Architects.
| What: |
DevCares (Chicago/September) |
| When: |
Thursday, September 28th, 2006, 1PM - 5PM |
| Where: |
Microsoft
3025 Highland Parkway
Suite 300
Downers Grove, IL. 60515 |
Register at http://imginc.com/devcares/.
If you are a Microsoft partner and are interested in presenting at future DevCare events, please contact me.
Illinois Events
I’ll be in Rockford tonight to attend the Rockford .NET Users Group meeting. This will be my first visit to the Rockford group and I’m really looking forward to meeting everyone. Be sure to come on by as I’ll be bringing a few things out of my prize closet to give away.And no, it doesn’t include an Xbox 360 or Zune.
| When: |
Wednesday September 27, 2006 |
| Where: |
Quantum Design
8400 E. Riverside Blvd.
Rockford, IL 61111 |
| Time: |
6:00 pm ? 9:00 pm |
Illinois Events
A few weeks ago, Rory (one of our beloved MSDN dudes) announced his immenent departure from the land of blue badges. It was all a ruse though as Rory just announced that he’ll be joining the channel9 team. Congrats, Rory!
If you’ve ever heard Rory on old episodes of .NET Rocks, you’ll certainly know that the channel9 videos will never be the same again.Let the comedy hijinks ensue.
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